


Upper Matecumbe Key

by Mazarin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sexual Themes, Suicidal Thoughts, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-15
Updated: 2011-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 02:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? Fight against nature? Harness the Earth to our purposes, refuse to submit to the whims of fate? Did you know, I’ve heard Florida spends billions every year hauling the sand out of the ocean and putting it back on the beaches, only to do it again the next year. Besides, you pessimist, they aren’t all dead.”</i> Sherlock struggles to find his own peace, set against the backdrop of the Florida Keys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upper Matecumbe Key

The leading edge of the wave washes in over Sherlock’s toes, pulls back to leave ten little depressions in the sand. He calculates he has about 5 minutes before the high point of the rising tide reaches his heels, unless an errant wave pushes forward, ahead of the others, to douse him.

He thinks about the Earth, subject still to celestial forces outside itself.

John drops down on the sand next to him. “If I’d known Florida was this beautiful, I’d have suggested we stay for two weeks instead of one.” He digs his toes in, bumps Sherlock’s shoulder affectionately. “You’re going to be completely crisp. I told you to put more sun cream on. Come on, let’s wash off and get some dinner.”

They do, and end up a half-mile up the island at a tiki bar where John gets half-sloshed on oysters and rum runners and warm, salt air. Sherlock pours him into a cab, not trusting him to make it home without vomiting, or passing out, or both. He puts him to bed and sits on their balcony overlooking the ocean, watching a storm whip up out on the horizon, lightning shattering the dark, churning sky.

It hits with a suddenness that takes his breath away, sound and fury and rain and wind, and he leans against the railing, out into the night and takes it all in, watching the ocean swell and crash against the shore. The palm trees sway, sometimes bent double under the onslaught, yet perfectly prepared— capable of flexing without breaking. It would be so easy to lose himself in this, in the elemental, leaning forward until he pitches into the sea, pushed and pulled on the waves into eternity, not strong enough to swim back to shore.

The sliding door opens and John is there. “You look like a wraith,” he says quietly, perfectly sober. “Come to bed.”

Sherlock takes John to bed, undresses him, uses lips and tongue and teeth and cock to make love to him with a forceful passion that frightens them both but leaves them sated and panting in the afterglow.

“Stay with me,” John murmurs into his ear. “It’s not worth anything if you’re not here. Besides, who will go with me to see Hemmingway’s six-toed cats, if not you?”

Sherlock laughs a little, relieved, but still feeling the tug of the wind.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

John’s scooping stranded moon jellies onto a piece of driftwood and floating them off into the waves, right at the most southern point of the United States, the very tip of Key West. They’d seen the descendants of Hemmingway’s six-toed cats, fat and indolent and lazy, and John had poked him and said they ought to send one home to Mycroft, for Anthea to keep in her lap in the back of the car. Sherlock had smiled then, his first smile in it seemed like weeks, and said if John could smuggle one out under his tee shirt, that he’d see that Mycroft received it with a bow around its neck.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Sherlock asks him. There are hundreds of jellies on the beach, washed up on last night’s storm tide. “They’ll just wash up again. Most of them are probably already dead, anyway.”

John sets another adrift in the waves, careful not to let it come back and sting him. He turns back to the beach, finds another, and starts to carefully move it.

“Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? Fight against nature? Harness the Earth to our purposes, refuse to submit to the whims of fate? Did you know, I’ve heard Florida spends billions every year hauling the sand out of the ocean and putting it back on the beaches, only to do it again the next year. Besides, you pessimist, they aren’t all dead.” He sets another free, jumps back a bit when it floats too close.

The drive back to the hotel in the never-ending sunset of a Florida summer, the windows down and John humming along with a horrid pop station on the radio. Sherlock leans his head on his arm, lets the wind play in his hair, and thinks about the sand, hauled to the shore only to slip away again during the next storm, back into the embrace of the ocean.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: Upper Matecumbe Key](https://archiveofourown.org/works/394619) by [Cellar_Door](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cellar_Door/pseuds/Cellar_Door)




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